30.6 million people were internally displaced in 2017

18, May 2018 | CJP Team

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), in 2017, “there were 30.6 million new displacements associated with conflict and disasters across 143 countries and territories.” Conflict resulted in 11.8 million new internal displacements last year, while disasters resulted in 18.8 million internal displacements. Of the former, 7.9 million displacements were driven by armed conflict, while 2.4 million displacements were driven by communal violence, and 1 million displacements were driven by political violence. Of the latter, 18 million displacements were due to weather, with 8.6 million due to floods, 7.5 million due to storms, and 1.3 million due to droughts. The IDMC noted that the number of new internal displacements linked to conflict and violence nearly doubled, going from 6.8 million in 2016 to 11.8 million in 2017. At 2.9 million, Syria saw the most new displacements due to conflict, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo at 2.2 million, and Iraq at 1.4 million. China was most impacted by disasters in 2017, seeing 4.5 million new displacements, followed by the Philippines, Cuba, the United States, and India, which saw 1.3 million new displacements. More information from the IDMC can be found here.